1939 Ensemble

Howl & Bite

Format

QUANTITY

DETAILS

TRACKS

Side A

Side B

RELEASE DATE

4/16/2013

“Metal and wood. Drums and vibes. Beats and melody. Random precision through noise.” 1939 Ensemble is a instrumental duo made up of percussionists Jose Medeles (The Breeders) and David Coniglio in Portland, OR. When describing the kind of music of 1939 Ensemble, it’s best to either keep it simple, or talk about it as an analogy.Think about great cities like Chicago and New York, then daydream about what those cities sound like. The history. The pavement. The sounds that are ambient and the sounds you can’t avoid. Music is a disruption. A moment when time is taken and folded in on itself to form what people call a measure, or a bar. Once you have a bar, you can live in it, you can cross over it, be behind it or in front of it. It is not the start of one line, or the end of another. It is a fully formed space that can be entered or exited according to a player’s desire. In this space music is not only a disruption, it becomes for the performer and the listener, freedom. Freedom though, has exacting standards. It’s about purposeful direction, not anarchy. The arch of 1939 Ensemble is an evolution towards those exacting standards that started in pure improvisation, and have shaped themselves at the hands of Jose and David. 1939 Ensemble doesn’t just cross genres, they both embrace and exploit them, inviting each listener in though the familiar, and then leaving them with something new to explore.